Additional statin treatment enhances the efficacy of HER2 blockade and improves prognosis in Rac1-high/HER2-positive breast cancer.
Biochim Biophys Acta Mol Basis Dis
; 1870(8): 167458, 2024 Dec.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-39128642
ABSTRACT
The prognosis of HER2-positive breast cancer (BC) has improved with the development of anti-HER2 therapies; however, the problem remains that there are still cases where anti-HER2 therapies do not respond well. We found that the expression of SREBF2, a master transcriptional factor in the mevalonate pathway, was correlated with ERBB2 (HER2) expression and a poor prognosis in HER2-positive BC. The target gene expressions of SREBF2 were associated with higher expression of ERBB2 in HER2-positive BC cells. Statins, anti-hypercholesterolemia drugs that inhibit the mevalonate pathway, enhanced the efficacy of HER2-targeting agents with inducing apoptosis in a geranylgeranylation-dependent manner. Mechanistically, statins specifically inhibited membrane localization of Rac1, a target protein of geranylgeranylation, and suppressed the activation of HER2 downstreams AKT and ERK pathways. Consistently, retrospective analysis showed a longer recurrence-free survival in Rac1-high/HER2-positive BC patients treated with HER2-targeting agents with statins than without statins. Our findings thus suggest that Rac1 expression could be used as a biomarker to stratify HER2-positive BC patients that could benefit from dual blockade, i.e., targeting HER2 with inhibition of geranylgeranylation of Rac1 using statins, thereby opening avenues for precision medicine in a new subset of Rac1-high/HER2-positive BC.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Breast Neoplasms
/
Receptor, ErbB-2
/
Hydroxymethylglutaryl-CoA Reductase Inhibitors
/
Rac1 GTP-Binding Protein
Limits:
Female
/
Humans
/
Middle aged
Language:
En
Journal:
Biochim Biophys Acta Mol Basis Dis
Year:
2024
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Japan
Country of publication:
Netherlands